Students plant saplings to create future shade for area parks

Published 7:00 pm, Wednesday, April 29, 2009

With pink and yellow gardening gloves to complement their plaid skirts and polo shirts, a group of fourth-grade girls gathered around a shovel Wednesday and took turns poking a hole into the earth.

"I'm excited," said Lynsey Walton, as she was paired with three others and sent into the dirt to start digging. Walton along with 39 other St. Ann's fourth graders traveled to the city of Midland tree farm Wednesday morning to plant 50 Arizona Cypress saplings.

After the saplings - which came pre-packaged in plastic baggies from a company in Nebraska - are given about three years to grow, students and others will return to transplant their trees to area City parks, said Clerk for the Midland Soil and Water Conservation Board Sherri Crabtree.

Before planting, students were taught about the importance of trees for oxygen and shade and about the elements of water, light and soil needed for trees to grow, said Executive Director of Keep Midland Beautiful Doreen Richardson.

From there, Richardson said, she explained how trees can be used to create paper and about the importance of recycling paper as a way to conserve resources and diminish waste.

Volunteers pulled the saplings out of their plastic covering and showed children the length of the roots to demonstrate how deep their holes needed to be and then split the group up and dispersed shovels that were nearly as tall as many of the students.

"The more people that see us plant, the more people that might plant," said Keep Midland Beautiful board member Ray Shimcek.

Whether students or those in the community who hear of what they're doing, Shimcek said the activity is meant not only to create a future supply of trees for the city, but also to encourage others to plant their own trees.

Crabtree said the soil and water conservation board sells trees at a low cost to ranchers and farmers in hopes the wind cover provided by the vegetation will cut down on dust blown in the area and in turn help the ground retain any precipitation.

A row of trees growing in front of those planted Wednesday works to provide the same sort of protection, she said. St. Ann's students planted this line of trees about seven years ago and the city has left the plants at the edge of the tree farm because they offer protection to the plants working to grow behind them.

Once trees reach a certain height, Crabtree said, they are better equipped to survive the West Texas wind.

Fourth grader Kali Naquin said she'd planted trees before while helping her parents in the yard at home, but that she learned through this process what elements are necessary for the trees she plants to actually grow.

"There are three things trees need to live," she said, pulling on her floral garden glove the students were lent to participate in the project.